Suella Braverman says don’t use foreign labour, train more Britons

It appears that Suella Braverman is set to refuse to ease visa rules to make it easier for foreign workers to come to Britain.

She is due to speak at the National Conservatism Conference today (Monday, May 15) and she will tell her audience that rather than use foreign workers Britons should be trained for jobs where there are shortages like HGV driving, gathering crops and working in the meat industry.

But there are plenty of ministers that disagree including Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt and education secretary, Gillian Keegan who have pointed out that there are economic benefits to issuing visas for workers in key sectors.

Braverman is expected to say that the UK needs to get immigration numbers down and that there isn’t a good reason why HGV drivers, fruit pickers and butchers can’t be trained from Britons here in the country to create a “high-skilled, High-wage economy that is less dependent on low-skilled foreign labour.”

Under current rules, butchers can come to work in the UK as a skilled trade, poultry workers and fruit pickers were eligible as seasonal workers before Christmas, but HGV drivers have been taken away from the list.

The National Farmer’s Union said the campaign to recruit Britons for fruit picking work had not recruited enough domestic workers and so they want to extend the amount of time foreign workers can work on a visa to “boost Britain’s production of fruit and vegetables.”